


The Death Of Me

by seibelsays



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019, F/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-08 03:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seibelsays/pseuds/seibelsays
Summary: “It wouldn’t kill you to be nice,” Natasha scolded.“You can’t prove that,” Bucky replied.





	The Death Of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019. Prompt: Secret Relationship
> 
> Title taken from the song that inspired the idea for this story: "The Death Of Me" by Marianas Trench

Darcy threw her book into her bag and zipped it closed before adjusting her scarf and pulling her jacket on. She stretched her back, hearing her spine and neck crack after the long flight.

“Wakey wakey, Jane,” she said, gently shaking her friend awake.

Jane mumbled something unintelligible under her breath as she rubbed her eyes. She blinked a few times and stared into the distance.

“Busy hanger today,” Jane noted.

Darcy looked around at the other Quinjets, which were all bustling with personel. Her eyes slid over most of them until they caught on a few rather outlandishly dressed persons. Okay, one outlandishly dressed patriotic person and a bunch of more reasonably dressed yet still intimidating persons.

“They let us land at the same time as the Avengers? How do we rate?” Darcy remarked with a smirk.

Jane shrugged. They grabbed their bags and walked down the ramp of the jet. Jane nodded at the Avengers as they passed.

“Hello Doctor Foster,” Steve said, giving Darcy a nod as well.

“Sup Spangles?” Darcy grinned. Steve laughed and it reached his eyes for once. Mission must not have been too bad then.

“Jane, Darcy,” Natasha greeted and nudged the scowly man next to her. Bucky Barnes glanced at Jane and Darcy but didn’t otherwise acknowledge them. 

Clint cleared his throat. “Short Stack. Welcome back.”

Darcy flipped him off with a good-natured grin as they made their way out of the hanger.

“Sheesh, who pissed in Barnes’ cornflakes this morning?” Jane grumbled when they were out of earshot of even the most enhanced hearing.

Darcy shrugged. “Have you ever talked to him?”

“He doesn’t talk to anybody.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Darcy argued. “He has to at least talk to Steve and Nat, right? And probably Fury or Hill. There’s probably others, too.”

“He could at least pretend to try to be personable.”

“Be fair, Jane. You’re not the easiest to talk to sometimes either. Especially when you’re tired or distracted or are working on a theory or-”

“Alright, alright. Point taken,” Jane grumbled.

Darcy grinned. “Want to dump the bags and go find some food?”

“Yes, please.”

***

“It wouldn’t kill you to be nice,” Natasha scolded.

“You can’t prove that,” Bucky replied.

She stared at him, calculating. 

“Doctor Foster and Darcy are great,” Steve said. “I think you’d like them.”

“Yeah. Darcy especially. She’s hilarious,” Clint chimed in, around a mouthful of protein bar that he’d scrounged up from somewhere.

“Sure,” Bucky dismissed.

Natasha rolled her eyes as Steve sighed. Clint opened up another protein bar and wandered off in search of coffee, dragging Nat along behind him.

“You ever gonna talk to anyone around here that isn’t us?” Steve asked quietly.

Bucky closed his locker with a decisive thud. “No.”

***

Bucky stood in front of the floor to ceiling window of his apartment, looking out over the city with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Lights were starting to prick the skyline as the sun set and people settled into their evening routines. He took a deep breath and tried to settle the feeling in his gut. 

The mission had been a relatively quick and painless one. Nothing out of the ordinary. Routine.

Except.

When they’d raided the files on the servers, he’d uncovered terabytes of data on Jane Foster and her work. It had been unsettling to say the least - there hadn’t been any chatter whatsoever that Jane was under threat or even being watched. She was famous, sure, and her work infamous. Discovering portals to other planets and winning Nobel Prizes will do that. But the level of detail in the information about her and her work - and who she worked with - paired with the fact that they hadn’t had an inkling she was being watched? It was unsettling. 

What the hell good was the world’s foremost intelligence and security apparatus if they had missed something like this? The doctor worked under their own roof half the time and they still had no idea. He didn’t like not knowing things. Not like this.

The entire idea was unnerved him. For more than one reason. His skin itched and for all that he held himself still, the urge to fling himself out into the night to fight all of their demons raged in his veins.

“Hey,” a voice said from behind him.

He infinitesimally tensed for half a moment before the owner of the voice registered and he relaxed. The feeling in his gut unclenched and his lips twitched into an approximation of a smile before he caught himself.

“Hey Darcy.”

She shuffled her feet, making lots of noise with her shoes as she came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed a kiss to his back, just between his shoulder blades. He relaxed into her embrace for a moment, then turned to face her, gently grasping her wrists and removing her hands from him.

“What?” she asked warily.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” he said.

“Keep our relationship a secret you mean? Sure. I’ll send out an interoffice memo and let everyone know we’ve been dating for the last two years.”

“Darcy-”

“Because that’s what you meant right?” she challenged. “I know you’re not dumb enough to be suggesting anything else.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not - look. We kept this quiet for a reason - it’s not safe. It has never been safe, it will never be safe. But now, it’s even less so and I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to just -”

“What happened?” Darcy interrupted.

He stared at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. “There was a file.”

The look she gave him said more with her eyes than she ever said with her lips. “There’s always a file.”

“This one was on a Hydra server.”

Darcy remained unfazed. “It’s not the first time.”

“No, but-”

“Bucky,” Darcy chastised quietly.

“The file was about Jane and her work. But there was so much about you in there. They were taking a serious look at you.”

Darcy nodded. “Makes sense. I know Jane’s work inside and out. I may not understand it, but I know it. I’m also not powered or enhanced or anything like that. I’m the weak link, I know that. I’ve always known that.” Her voice was strangely calm, countermanding her words.

Bucky chewed on his lower lip. “I’m not sure I did. I mean - I did. But I don’t think it really registered until now.”

“So...what? Now that you know, you want to give up?” Again, she was calm, her voice curious not accustory. 

“No, that’s not - I mean. I just…” he sighed and tugged at his hair a little, allowing the pain to bring his focus back to the conversation at hand instead of getting swept away in his inner turmoil. Darcy patiently waited.

She was always patiently waiting for him. And that was part of the problem.

He was infinitely better these days than he was when they first met and he knew that he owed a large part of that to her steady presence. Some days, Darcy Lewis was the glue that held the fragile pieces of him together. But even with all the progress he’d made, he still wasn’t enough. She deserved so much more than just...whatever was left of him.

He would love her if he could. 

Sometime between falling off a train in 1945 and waking up out of Hydra’s brainwashing in a new century, he had forgotten what it was to be head over heels for someone. To put their happiness, their wants and needs, their _life_ above his own. And maybe that sounded a little bit like love. Maybe it was.

Maybe that was the problem. He loved her. And she looked at him like she loved him back and he wasn’t sure he could take it anymore.

“Bucky,” Darcy said, drawing him back out of his thoughts. “First of all, no one knows that we’re together. So there’s no reason that I would be in any _additional_ danger because of my attachment to you. And - I say this with all the love and care in my heart - my danger level really doesn’t have anything to do with you. I was in danger long before I ever met you. I would be in danger every single day even if I’d never met you.”

There was that l-word again. He shook his head. “This isn’t-”

“Bucky. I could be kidnapped by AIM. Attacked by Doombots. Let’s not forget how I made Project Insight’s kill list before I ever met you okay?”

“I would like to forget that, actually,” he muttered. She ignored him.

“And that’s not even taking into account more mundane dangers. I could get mugged or hit by a bus. I could have a brain aneurysm or fall down the stairs. Hell - a shitty barista could give me almond milk instead of coconut and put me in anaphylactic shock. _None of this_ changes with my relationship status.”

He choked back a sob at the thought.

“This isn’t about my current threat assessment level, though. Is it.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. He just shoved his hands back in his pockets and looked aways. She wasn’t really asking him a question, though. She already knew.

“This you feeling unworthy?” she asked, her voice soft and kind as she tugged one of his hands out of his pocket and wrapped it up in her own.

She had a way of seeing right through to the heart of him. Always had. Probably always would.

“Even when I try to do the right thing, I mess it up, Darce. I’m not - I’m not good. I’ll never be good. Even before the brainwashing - there’s always been a darker part of me. The part that has always been happy to do the dirty work.”

She nodded. “You get bloody so other people don’t have to. I know.”

He ignored the calm acceptance in her voice. If he thought about it _at all_ his resolve would crumble and he couldn’t allow that. “And yes, you have a very long list of dangers you are in with or without me. But that list gets exponentially longer _with me_ if you and I stop keeping this thing between us a secret. And...I don’t want any more secrets. I’m so tired of secrets, Darcy. But secrets are what keep you safe. And I can’t live in a world where you aren’t safe. Even if it’s just safe from me.”

Something flashed hot and angry in her eyes before she took a deep breath and took control of her emotions before she said something they’d both regret. 

“I don’t accept that, Bucky,” she said. “The only thing breaking up is going to accomplish is making us both miserable.” She sighed and reached out for him. He let her pull him close, wrapping his arms around her and breathing her in.

She buried her face in his chest. “I’m in, Bucky. If the only way I can keep you is to remain your secret, I’ll do it. I love you too much to give you up without a fight.”

With that, his heart surrendered and a tear slipped from his eye without his permission. “I love you, too, Darcy,” he breathed.

She looked up sharply. “You do?” she asked, her voice small.

And this? This was the most unacceptable atrocity he had committed in his too-long life. He hated himself more than a little for ever making her feel this way, for putting that doubt and uncertainty in her heart. This was his fault, his failing. Now it was up to him to fix it. “Yeah, Darcy. I do. I love you.”

A slow smile crept across her face until it was blinding and radiant. “Then stop trying to break up with me, dummy, and just kiss me already.”

A broken chuckle escaped him as he leaned in to kiss her, slow and sweet like honey. When they parted, he didn’t go far, touching his forehead to hers. 

“I’m still - I’m still broken, Darce.”

“I know. I still love you. Every part of you.”

A weight he didn’t realize he had been carrying lifted off his chest as he felt his shoulders relax a little. “Maybe…”

Could he do this? _Really_ do this? He looked into Darcy’s eyes, wide and trusting and so full of love. Love for him. Love for what they shared.

Maybe he could do this. Darcy wouldn’t let him fall, wouldn’t let him stray. She was his true north and she made him brave.

“Maybe we could start by telling Jane? She wouldn’t say anything to anyone if you asked her not to, right?”

“Really?” Darcy asked. Excitement danced in her eyes and Bucky knew that this was absolutely the right thing to do.

“Yeah. Really.”

“You’re not going to try to break up with me for my own good again, are you? Because once we tell Jane, she _will_ beat your ass if you try that again.”

“No,” he laughed. “Pretty sure you’re stuck with me for the long haul.” His voice grew soft as he realized just how true the words were. “I’m not going anywhere unless you send me away.”

“I’m not sending you away,” she replied, her voice filled with certainty.

“You’re my one good thing, Darce.”

“You’re mine too, you know.”

That was that then. “No matter what happens then.”

“No matter what.”

***

Bucky adjusted the holster on his thigh, as he strode to the Quinjet. With any luck, this would be another quick callout - in, out, done, back in time to make dinner for Darcy. He’d been promising her lasagne for weeks and he’d finally had time to get to the little family-owned market in Brooklyn that had been there since he was a kid to pick up everything he needed.

He stopped at the gear rack just inside the hanger, assessing the available equipment. He added a few knives to the arsenal he already had tucked away on his person. Never could have too many knives.

The doors whooshed open and allowed a StarkPad wielding Darcy inside. She ignored his presence, as she usually did when they were in public, moving instead to check in a few of the large containers recently offloaded from another jet.

Bucky hesitated. It was just him and Darcy anywhere in earshot. Clint, if he had his hearing aids turned on or was watching and reading their lips. 

“See you when I get back, Darce,” he said.

She glanced back at him, a little startled. “Be careful, Bucky,” she replied after a moment, giving him a smile.

“I’m always careful. It’s everyone else you gotta watch out for.”

“Uh huh,” she replied, clearly not believing him for one second. She did know better after all.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promised as he backed towards the waiting Quinjet.

“Bring me a souvenir?” she teased.

“I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

He grinned at her before turning and climbing aboard the jet after Clint. He tried to school his features into a more neutral expression, but he couldn’t quite hide the high he was riding. Not having to ignore Darcy outside the safety of his apartment might be a little addicting.

“You done pretending you’re not in love with her?” Clint asked casually, as he checked over his arrows.

“Uh - we - what - who -”

“I see better from a distance, man. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Bucky blurted. 

“I’m not going to save you from Natasha’s wrath when she finds out though.”

***

Darcy watched as Bucky disappeared into the jet with a smile. She could get used to being able to see him off when he got called away, although she was pretty sure she was still going to enjoy welcoming him home even more.

“Hey Darce - what are you doing up here?” Jane asked. 

“Uh…” Darcy thought fast. While she and Bucky had agreed to tell Jane, they hadn’t decided _when_ to tell Jane and she didn’t want Bucky to get blindsided when he came back. “I could ask you the same question!”

Jane flushed bright red. “Uh…”

Steve stumbled through the door, adjusting his uniform. He glanced to Jane and Darcy, blushed, then gave them a swift nod before heading for the jet.

Darcy’s eyes slid to Jane, who was wistfully watching Steve walk away.

“Janey.”

Jane turned to her. “Darcy,” she replied. She raised an eyebrow.

Darcy matched her, not willing to concede.

After a few tense moments, Jane’s resolve crumbled with a sigh. She turned to watch the Quinjet take off. “We both have confessions to make, I think.”

Darcy shifted so she could watch the jet fly away. “Secrets will be the death of us all, Jane. Coffee?”

“Ugh no. Too late in the day.”

“Wine?”

“Now you’re talking.”


End file.
